What Do You Love About Your Body?

I think we all (especially women) spend way too much time criticizing ourselves. Personally, I spent 15 years not happy in my own skin. Not swimming with friends because I didn’t want to wear a bathing suit, not dancing at weddings because I didn’t like the way I looked in my dress, not buying clothes that fit because I wanted to hide under oversized jeans and t-shirts. Some of you may think “yeah, well, it’s easier for you now to be confident, you lost the weight”. But I’m here to tell you it was the opposite. First, I learned how to love myself, then I started to lose weight.

Something happened to me after I had “the toddler”. I realized how beautiful, valuable and important my body really is. I remember hiking with a friend and wearing a tank top about month after giving birth. Now, I would NEVER be caught dead without sleeves, NEVER. Geesh, I even spent months looking for a long sleeve wedding dress! And here I was 200lbs, carrying my newborn in a sling and hiking with a friend. I didn’t care my arms weren’t “model” thin. I was out living life, enjoying myself and keeping cool (it was a HOT day and who wants to wear sleeves on a hot day anyway?)

The point I’m trying to make (not sure if I’m doing a good job of it) is that I had a defining moment where I realized it’s not worth it to be unhappy about my body. I had to accept myself for me at THAT moment if I was to grow and continue on my journey. It wasn’t easy (I think we established that). It took a lot of mental coaching and positive self talk. Yes, I actually have looked in the mirror and said, “This is you, DEAL WITH IT!” while wearing something I normally wouldn’t be caught dead in, like a tank top!

So my answer to this simple question is so much more then a particular body part (although I’ve always liked my neck – weird, I know) what I love about my body is that it is healthy, strong, and has the ability to change. I love that my body has grown and nurtured a life. And I love that my body allows me to enjoy life to the fullest, I know not everyone is that lucky.

My smile!! I do my best to wear it OFTEN!! I’ve been told that it brighten people’s Day! That is a Win Win because their compliment brightens mine!! I also love the “Power” Of my body!! No matter what the challenge, It comes in STRONG and ALWAYS FINISHES!! 😉

I love my skin. Weird answer, right? But I do. I LOVE it. It is soft, its smooth, it heals itself, it feels nice. And I am comfortable in it, physically and metaphorically speaking. My body isn’t perfect and I’m still working on being the healthiest me possible, but overall I like the whole package.

At first I was going to pick my hair. I really do love my hair. It is thick and wavy. I also love my eyes. They have a tendency to change colors depending on my mood, clothing or surroundings.

The more I thought about it though, I really love my whole body. Without I wouldn’t have been able to carry both of my children. It also provided the only food they had for their first 6 months of life. Sure my body isn’t “perfect”, but it is mine. It has given me the 2 best people in the world.

I love my strength, especially in my legs. I often joke that I’m built Tonka tough, and that really comes through in my sturdy bottom half. Feeling like I’m physically resilient helps me feel more mentally resilient.

I really like most of my face, especially my mouth and my eyes, which are slightly almond shaped due to some central Asian ancestry. Also I love that I have a dimple.

But my real answer is how strong I am. I’ll never be skinny, but I’m naturally muscular and was even as a baby (I skipped the whole pulling myself into a standing position and apparently just stood up in the middle of my parents’ living room at 6 months old). I appreciate that I can walk up the hill to my third floor apartment without getting winded and that I can push myself and just get stronger.

I love my green eyes. I love the shapes and colors of my breasts. I love my thick, muscular legs. I love that my skin is clear and beautiful after nearly eight years of struggling to find a treatment that actually works. I love my big, round ass. I love my soft, plump, pink mouth (and I love shopping for cosmetics and stumbling over lipsticks in the same shade, LOL). I love my diamond-hard fingernails. There are parts of my body that I don’t like, but I find that the less I obsess over diet and exercise, the more of my body I love. I only hope that someday I’ll learn to love all of my body! ^^

Lots of things. Right now I love that my arms could do 2 chaturangas last night with straight legs, and I love that it is taking me so far on my bike lately. My lungs, I love my lungs, they are getting stronger. And my legs are strong.

I love my figure. I think my fat has settled in the right places. Once I found a shop that sold athletic wear in my size, I was surprised at how good I looked in a sleek yoga jacket.

I also like my hands. I remember reading a Laura Ingalls Wilder book where Laura was comparing her own “strong, capable” hands to another girl’s white, slender, delicate ones. I think Laura wished her hands could be like Nellie’s, but I was glad I had hands like Laura’s. They are squarish and a bit sinewy.

I love my eyes. They’re the same exact blue as my mom, dad, brother, and sister and connect my family … and they’re what won my husband over 🙂 Well, besides my curvaceous and tight butt 😉 Working out does have it’s benefits. What God ignored up top … he sure gave me on the bottom 🙂

I also love my hour-glass shape that has remained so, regardless of my weight.

I love my whole body. I love it’s strength and resiliancy, and my awareness of it’s ultimate fragility increases my desire to make the most of this single opportunity I will ever have to live inside my one and only self.

I also have to agree with a previous poster – I wasted many years and tears on weight loss schemes that never worked. After I started caring more about treating my body well than I did about losing weight – I got fit and healthy and lost a lot of weight. Effortlessly, in comparison to my previous, weight-focused attempts, and without all the guilt, stress, and restrictive eating. I’m still surprized by this.

what a great question. I think I’m kind of like you, Roni. I am amazed at all my body can take, has taken, and will continue to endure….it has seen me through unhealthy-thin, unhealthy-heavy (i HATE the word f-a-t) and currently healthy and in shape/fit It grew and then birthed my daughter and the was her sole meaning of food for almost a full year. everyday, it takes me places, allows me to keep up with an always active almost 3 year old, and continues to encourage my husband to snuggle up close at night 🙂

On a slightly vain note, I will admit I love my legs. even at my heaviest they are shaply, muscular and well…I just like them 🙂

I just had to have a hip replaced because of osteoarthritis resulting from a car accident I was in 20 years ago. So, I haven’t been as active as usual for the past few years, I’ve put on 20 pounds. I love how my body looks now, and clothes fit SO much better. I used to be very pear shaped, but all the weight I’ve gained has gone to my chest, and I’m up to a large C cup (normally, I’m wear a 40B). I’m definitely plus-sized now rather than being in that awkward in-between range, and clothes fit me really well. I’ve always liked how dramatic my figure is, with big hips and butt and a relatively tiny waist, but it looks even better now that it’s more balanced. And, of course, I’m always loved the juxtaposition of strength and softness in my body; how I have a really strong, solid core that’s softened and shaped by fat over top. I’m looking forward to getting more active again, but I hope I keep this new balanced, voluptuous figure.

I love my body’s resiliency. I’ve managed to injure it again and again but it keeps healing itself (or healing itself post-surgery).

I’m beginning to love my stretch marks in the same way I love my tattoos and scars. They are maps of where I’ve come from, of my strength. Sometimes, I even think they kind of look like fireworks and everyone loves a good firework 🙂

My Lips
My round bum
My reproductive system (seriously – how complex?)
My right foot, where I have a new tattoo
and…I know it’s not really a body ‘part’ but I love the way I, and everyonbe else, looks like when they laugh!

I also love my body’s forgiveness. I really have put it through the ringer through years of yo-yo dieting and then four pregnancies and three births (I gained almost 80 pounds w/ babe #1!!!). I am always amazed at how it has the ability to get stronger, faster and healthier when you treat it kindly :-).

I actually looked at myself in the mirror last night, and realized that I love my stomach. Or rather, I looked at myself and realized that I could *learn* to love my stomach – as it is, right this minute.

It’s not as flat as it was when I was on the swim team in high school, but it has done something truly amazing in the meantime. My body, all on its own, built and laboured and delivered a baby. A beautiful, strong, healthy, baby – grown in my beautiful, strong, healthy body.

It’s not the same body it used to be – but whose is? And I’m pretty sure I won’t always be thinking so positively when I look at my stomach in the mirror, but I can confidently say that I thought it at least once.

And if I can remember that thought, and that moment – well, that’s the first step towards thinking it again. I’ll keep practicing, I promise!

It’s interesting to me to note the different ways in which people interpret the question, “What do you love about your body?” For the most part, people are picking a body part or two that they like and talking about the pieces/parts of their anatomy they find copasetic. A few people are describing valued characteristics of their whole bodies like strength and resilience.

I love my nose and ears. They’re tiny – so hopefully won’t be too big when I’m an old lady lol After losing 40lbs, I’m now in a great shape and I’m proud that I’ve kept my womanly curves on my hips, bum, and other places. I love that my body is so much stronger today to allow me to do more in my day, and push my limit more when exercising.

I love my hips which are very large and lumpy! I was raised by a thin family who made fun of them. Worthless boyfriends did too. The only other person I ever saw who had hips like mine was a Cherokee woman. What do you know, I found out my biological father was 1/2 Cherokee! (And I am very proud of this heritage!) Studies have shown hip and thigh fat to be protective, pear shaped women have a LOWER rate of heart disease and diabetes! In ancient Polynesia, they loved hips. They had beauty contests where the woman with the lumpiest hips won! Funny, I just met a man from Hawaii I am starting to date. Hip, hip hurray!